Google’s 3rd Most Important Ranking Factor & Why You Should Care

Back in November 2015, and during UAE Innovation Week, I presented about the future of search. One of the areas I covered was Google’s “RankBrain“.

Google has confirmed that RankBrain is one of the top three ranking factors for search engine results placement. The first and second most important, not in order, are content and links. The third most important ranking factor, RankBrain is one that poses significant challenges to designers, content creators, and marketers who are trying to design content specifically for ranking purposes. RankBrain, an artificial intelligence system that learns user search behavior and evaluates website content, is – according to a March 2016 Q&A with a Senior Strategist at Google – the third most important ranking factor out of the hundreds they use to rank and place search results.

In October 2015, Bloomberg reported on RankBrain and included some key information about the AI factor as provided by one of Google’s senior research scientists. This information included the statement that RankBrain was the third most important ranking factor in search results, so the March 2016 statement is simply a confirmation of what we’d already been told by a senior Google staffer. RankBrain is still in third place officially, but the position is “hotly contested” as it jockeys for better placement against content and links in the top three ranking factors.

Why care?

Why does RankBrain challenge designers who are focusing on SERP placement? Because it isn’t a static algorithm component that you can easily define and design around or for. It learns and evolves with every one of the billions of user queries and thousands of indexed web pages it encounters each day. RankBrain also doesn’t replace the many different elements of Google’s algorithm, it is just one small cog in the massive algorithm machine that Google officially named Hummingbird in mid-2013. Now, after you’ve optimized your online content for as many verified ranking factors as you can find, you have to contend with a factor that may be just as unpredictable as user search behavior.

Before you start fretting about your SEO strategies, you should know that RankBrain does not handle all search queries performed on Google, which sees millions of queries every second. Most of the searches that RankBrain processes are those that have never been entered into a search query box before. While you might think that there isn’t much Google hasn’t seen yet, keep in mind that it receives three billion search queries every single day. Approximately 15% of those queries – or 450 million – are searches never before entered by any human being.

The ability to analyze and interpret as-yet-unknown and ambiguous searches is a huge step forward in the search industry because, completely new queries aside, searchers are asking questions or looking for information with more conversational words and phrases than ever before, too. Voice searches on mobile devices have opened the doors for this practice to a large degree, and users are taking advantage of the convenience of speaking their query rather than typing it.

While you might think this has little to do with your marketing strategies, RankBrain does have an impact on your SEO. It means you will have to start doing what you should have been doing all along – designing your content for users, not search engines. Some of the ways you can do this include:

• Using more conversational search phrases as your keywords.
• Including long-tail keywords in your content to make it more relevant to user searches.
• Applying user experience design (UXD) tips to your websites, pages, and content.

The March 2016 Q&A that confirmed the top three ranking factors also provided a bit more insight into how Google’s algorithm works. The Senior Strategist for Google said that, in essence, different parts of the algorithm have more or less weight depending on the search queries entered and the search results provided. One set of results may show that a dozen specific algorithm factors dominate the determination of SERP placement, while another set of results doesn’t take any of those same factors into account when assigning rank position. This adds one more dynamic factor to the way designers, marketers, and content creators have to shift their focus toward an optimal user experience rather than an experience created for an algorithm.

Closing thoughts…

If you have been tailoring your online content to meet the wants, needs, and demands of your audience all along, you likely have little to worry about when it comes to RankBrain or any other Google algorithm component. Keep your focus on creating the most valuable and engaging experience for your users and they will repay you with continued traffic, leads, and a return on your investment that a search engine can never provide.

Image by www.flickr.com/photos/cblue98/

This post was originally published on Sandstorm Digital FZE

What Does Google’s Trial of 4 Ad Positions Tell Us About the Future of Search?

No doubt you’ll have heard by now that Google is trialling 4 top ad positions on some searches in the United States, and the trial looks to be in full swing.

A quick search in AdWord’s preview tool returned one of what I’ve affectionately called “the 4 tops”. (Not one of these – they’re much more fun.)

Why are Google doing this?

The cynical view would simply be that it’s a test to see if more ads equal more revenue. More ad positions would result in more ad clicks and therefore more revenue for Google. The cynics among us might even guess the move is in response to the Adblockalypse – the rise of ad blocking software which is undoubtedly affecting Google’s display network revenues.

But the non-cynical view is that most of the changes rolled out by Google have the user’s best interests at heart. And if I’m really honest, there are some searches where the sponsored results return better, more relevant options. Speaking from experience, any time I search with the intent to purchase or transact, I find the sponsored results much more useful. As long as Google continues to use the 4 tops when it makes sense, I, for one, will be happy.

Thinking about the future of search

I think there is one obvious takeaway, and one that’s a bit more philosophical.

The obvious takeaway is, if you’re not investing in paid search, you should. Now.

Increasing the number of ad positions above the organic results means your customers are going to have to scroll a long way down the page, past some very enticing adverts, before finding your organic result.

Granted, not all searches will return the 4 tops, and in some instances organic results are preferable. But increasingly the searches that have purchase or transactional intent return a results set heavily weighted toward sponsored results.

This segues nicely into my more philosophical takeaway…

The time has come for marketers to stop thinking about organic and paid search as different entities. Instead, we should think about what’s best for our users in terms of what kind of result makes sense for them in this context.

Let’s face it, neither organic nor paid are free. Both have a cost per click. Both require us to understand the language (keywords) of our users, creating engaging landing pages and optimising campaigns for a desired result. Both have their place in any user-centric digital marketing strategy.

Yes, tactically you need to do different things and use different skills but, at a strategic level, search should just be search.

“What do my users want to do when they enter a query into a search engine?” is the question every marketer should be asking when creating their search strategy. The answer that comes back will define how and when to use paid versus organic.

For example, if your business has a fast-moving, price-sensitive inventory, you might decide paid search gives your users the best results because your ads can react to the changes in your inventory in near real-time. If your business has a much longer sales process, where the user conducts a lot of self-paced research before purchasing, you might decide organic search will provide the best results.

What do you think?

Are you managing search with a strategy that combines organic and paid? Or do you have a separate strategy for each type of search? Please share your thoughts.

https://www.rocketmill.co.uk/4-ad-positions

Get on Page 1 of Google in 7 Minutes (or less)

Why Your #1 Google Ranking Doesn’t Matter

So, you’ve paid your money, you’ve waited 4-6 months and now you’ve done it… You are on the first page for one of your keywords! What does that really mean? Absolutely nothing.

Why? Because there is a huge distinction between traffic and rankings. I like rankings, but I love traffic! Isn’t the whole point of higher rankings to have more traffic to your site? Literally, this morning before I started my writing, I was emailing with a potential client who said that he wanted a quote to increase his rankings.  He said that his current SEO marketer was doing okay, but he felt he could do better. He mentioned that he was on the first page for 8-10 keywords, but he would like to be on the first page for 20. I asked him as I usually do in this situation, “How many visitors come to your site each month from the 8-10 first-page keywords you have right now?” He had no idea because he wasn’t tracking traffic. This is why I always say “Don’t ever, EVER pay for rankings!” Rankings are worthless if they don’t bring traffic, and trust me, not all first page rankings increase your traffic.

For instance, if you type in “Minneapolis Saint Paul Auto Repair Carburetor Engine Spark Plug”, you can be on the first page for that search. If you run it all together, there is no doubt that you can get there, but the problem is there will be no traffic on that keyword. Why is this so? Because it is seven keywords all run into one and almost no one is searching for it.  If I were an SEO marketer (which I am not, I am a brand marketer!!), I would tell you that I could get you on the first page for 20 keywords for $395/month. You would pay me for rankings and I would deliver. But your traffic needle wouldn’t move one bit.

The right way to do this is to do keyword research before we even begin to talk about rankings because we want to know if the words will be good for you and if it will affect your rankings in general. “Longtail” keywords like the example above can be very valuable IF you have determined that there are a good number of real potential clients that are using it. We need to know that there’s a pretty good amount of traffic searching that keyword so that once we get it moving up and showing well in the rankings we also see the bump in traffic. Installing and using a sophisticated traffic system is the only way to know if you are getting value for the strategies you are implementing.

Google Analytics and Google Keyword Planner are the tools you need.  Let us know if we can help!http://www.digitalbrandmakeover.com/why-your-1-google-ranking-doesnt-matter-3/